Apple blocks Facebook

Apple
has reportedly blocked the Facebook application that pays its user to
track their internet usage. When asked about this to Apple, it’s
said that Facebook has broken Apple’s privacy
guidelines by collecting it’s users private information such as
location, internet history, and messages.

According
to an investigation done by website Techcrunch, it is
found that Facebook was able to go through
the official App store which had strict rules for an application that
funnel internet traffic. Facebook has done this by using the
so-called Developer Enterprise Program. This program allows companies
to distribute apps among developers for testing purposes.

Despite
the fact the programme is officially designed for only using on
employees, Facebook has recruited non-employees and paid them money
of up to $20 a month to use the application in exchange for giving
the company access to the user’s internet history and various other
private information. Among those that took part in this research by
the social media giant were teens some of whom were as young as 13.

Apple
said in a statement to tech site Recode that it has started the
Developer Enterprise Program “solely for the internal
distribution of apps within an organization.” Adding to the
statement “Facebook has been using their membership to
distribute a data-collecting app to consumers, which is a clear
breach of their agreement with Apple. Any developer using their
enterprise certificates to distribute apps to consumers will have
their certificates revoked, which is what we did in this case to
protect our users and their data.”

Apart
from blocking the Facebook app, a key certificate was
also blocked which has caused several of
Facebook’s internal testing apps not to work anymore.

On
the other hand, Facebook has defended its programme, saying it was
not doing anything wrong and that only a very small percentage of
people were underage.”Key facts about this market research
program are being ignored.
Despite early reports, there was nothing ‘secret’ about this; it
was called the Facebook Research App,” Facebook said. It also
added that “It wasn’t ‘spying’ as all of the people who
signed up to participate went through a clear onboarding process
asking for their permission and were paid to participate. Finally,
less than five percent of the people who chose to participate in this
market research program were teens. All of them with signed parental
consent forms.”

Many
of the activists and privacy organizations condemned Facebook for its
practices, saying that the company cares more about profits than the
privacy of teenagers.

Due
to the desperate search for data by Facebook, it has been secretly
paying people to install a “Facebook Research” VPN, which allows
the company to gather all the user’s web and phone activities. This
is not the first time Facebook and Apple have been at the conflict
over privacy-related issues. It is not the first time Apple and
Facebook have been at odds over privacy-related matters. Previous
year on of Facebook’s Virtual network app Onavo was
banned from Apple’s app store for collecting
user information. This information was related to specifics on phone
and app use.

Based
on another Techcrunch investigation, it is found
that Google also reportedly misused Apple’s programme to spy on its
users though it is not sure yet if Apple will also revoke the Google
app and its related certificate from taking part in the Developer
Enterprise Program.

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